Bangladesh, Sept. 2 -- With the local government elections drawing closer, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is moving to shape the rules of the contest before a single vote is cast, demanding Tuesday that the Election Commission exclude leaders of the banned Awami League from the polls and strip politically connected officials of their role in overseeing them.

The demands, delivered in a meeting between a six-member Jamaat delegation and Chief Election Commissioner A.M.M. Nasir Uddin at the commission's Agargaon headquarters, reflect a broader anxiety within Bangladesh's opposition landscape: that the machinery meant to referee the country's next elections is not as neutral as it should be.

Mia Golam Porwar, the party's secretary general, to...